Avoid Delta and Atlanta

On 17 Aug 2006 07:54:52 -0700, "Tchiowa"
wrote:


Hatunen wrote:
On 16 Aug 2006 17:57:36 -0700, "Tchiowa"
wrote:

So because memebrs of the EU bureacracy sometimes use English it
means almost all Europeans speak English? Your logic escapes
mmost of us.

Interesting. I cited several examples. You separate them then respond
that *just one* of them doesn't prove anything. Try taking things as a
whole.

Oh, wow. You cited several examples. But you provided no
Gallup-type justification for extrapolating from those example to
an entire continent.

So now I have to conduct a continent wide poll for you?

It is the primary language of business
throughout the EU.

Not yet. It is the primary language in certain places, e.g., the
board of FIAT.

Try again. Look at the law for contracts in the EU.

What, exactly, does it say?

I told you to look. Go ahead.

English is the primary language of business in the EU for any business
that crossed national borders.

Ah. Changing your claim again. Now you add the qualification that
it is true for businesses that cross national boundaries. Do you
have an itemized list of all the European businesses that cross
national boundaries, denoting those that conduct business in
English and those that don't?

No. Do you? Or are you just grasping at an argument because you know
you're wrong?

It is the primary language for education throughout the EU.

Most student now have to study English in the schools, but it is
far from the "primary language for education throughout the EU".

It is *required* for lower level students to learn at a minimum level
and many University degrees require almost fluencyi.

That is NOT the same thing as "the primary language of
education."

Pardon me. I guess I should have said "higher education".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3143464.stm

"Italians place a very high importance on learning languages,
particularly English. Fifteen years ago it was quite difficult to find
an English speaker here but today it is relatively easy."

"Relatively easy"? Compared to what?

As compared to what it used to be like, maybe? Which has been my
experience in 2 decades travelling to Europe fairly regularly.

Try traveling into the hinterlands a little more.

Like where? Atyrau, Kazakhstan? Riga, Latvia? Oporto, Portugal?

Is Kazakhstan in Europe?

So, exactly what did you doin Riga and Oporto.

Or are you starting like a couple of other people I've seen posting
that unless you hang out with the poor and uneducated you can't
possibly understand the culture?

Why do you assume that was my meaning?

By the by, my realtives are hardly poor and uneducated (hardly
anyone in Finland is uneducaated) but many of them don't speak
English.

But I do know that hanging out with General Motors executives
isn't the best way to understand the culture of America.
Especially since they show little grasp of it themselves.

YOu're very
much like those Europeans who come to the USA, visit New York and
Los Angeles, and proceed to tell us what all Americans are like,
even those in Kansas and Texas and Oregon.

How about the Europeans that come to the USA over 100 times and spend
several years total in 50 cities in 1/3 of the states. Would that help?

That's pretty much what I've done in Europe.

So you say.

It's one thing to have several years experience, it's another to
have a week's experience a hundred or so times.

(As an example, I checked my Frequent Flyer data base. I've landed in
Paris 83 times. Yes, I got so tired of the place that the last 40 or so
I spent very little time there. Took the train to Amsterdam or Lisbon
or anywhere else I could find other than Paris.)


Well, your certainly seem to have a lot of expeerience with CDG.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *